Kiteboarding (also known as kitesurfing) is the latest extreme sports craze. A kiteboarder (i.e., the human operator) is pulled on a board by a kite. The board can be specially designed for kiteboarding, or it can be another type of board or support, such as a snowboard, landboard, skates, iceboard, buggy, wake ski, etc. The kiteboarder usually wears a harness for transmitting the pull force of the kite to the body of the wearer. The harness is connected to the kite (also known as the sail) through appropriate rigging, such as a control bar. The kite can pull a kiteboarder over many different surfaces, including water, ice, snow and even terra firma, as well as into the air.
The harness usually includes a laterally elongated metal spreader bar attached at each end to a garment (i.e., a girdle or vest). A heavy-duty hook is rigidly attached to the spreader bar intermediate the ends of the bar. The hook extends outward from the harness near the pelvis for catching a “chicken loop” (also known as a “harness loop”) on the control bar.
While generally effective for transmitting the pull force of the kite throughout the body of the wearer, the harness tends to exert a constant twisting or torsion force upon the body of the wearer whenever the kiteboarder desires to ride at an angle relative to the direction of the pull force of the kite, and also tends to exert a “jerking” torsion force upon the body of the wearer whenever the kite makes a significant lateral shift relative to the wearer. Such torsion forces tend to prematurely fatigue the kiteboarder and reduce the kiteboarders overall enjoyment of the sport.
Numerous variations exist in the hardware used to attach kiteboard rigging to a kiteboard harness. Unfortunately, all suffer from certain shortcomings or limitations which adversely impact the performance or comfort of the harness. The purpose of the present invention is to overcome these and other shortcomings or limitations in the prior art.